pop singer
Personal Information
Born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, near Andrews, South Carolina; son of a tobacco farmer; married Catharina Lodders, a former Miss World and a native of the Netherlands; children: three.
Career
Pop vocalist and recording artist. Worked in butcher shop and performed with street corner harmony group, the Quantrells, late 1950s; signed to Cameo-Parkway label, 1959; appeared on American Bandstand and recorded "The Twist," 1960; appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, 1961; "The Twist" re-released, 1962; other top-ten recordings related to dance steps, 1962-63; touring artist, late 1960s-; recorded version of "The Twist" with rap group the Fat Boys, 1988.
Life's Work
Chubby Checker is an enthusiastic promoter of his place in history. "Since I recorded 'The Twist,'" he told the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, "people have never danced [close] together again, whether it was to my music or somebody else's. That, to me, is as important in music as electricity is in the world of lighting. I'm the tires the cars roll on." To some observers, on the other hand, Checker happened to be in the right place at the right time to ride a dance craze to the top--"a lucky clown," in the words of Entertainment Weekly's Ty Burr. The truth lies somewhere in between. Checker's recording of "The Twist" was one of the definitive recordings of the 1960s and a huge success by any standard. And though Checker is almost exclusively remembered for "The Twist," he was more than a one-hit wonder, placing 33 songs on the U.S. pop charts in the 1960s and bringing seven of them to the Top Ten.
The son of a tobacco farmer, Chubby Checker was born Ernest Evans on October 3, 1941, near Andrews, South Carolina, in the state's coastal lowlands. He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his family when he was eight. As a boy he shined shoes, and in high school he worked in a butcher shop plucking chickens. An early indication of his talent came when customers noticed his skill at impersonating the leading vocalists of the early rock and roll era--Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, above all, a wildly successful New Orleans singer Checker admired, Fats Domino. Soon Checker was interested in music and performing with a streetcorner-harmony group, the Quantrells.
His first break came when the butcher shop's owner introduced him to local recording entrepreneur Kal Mann. The recording industry in Philadelphia at the time was in the early stages of becoming a youth-culture hit machine that would spawn the careers of such figures as Fabian, Bobby Rydell, and Frankie Avalon; and Checker, still known as Ernest Evans, was quickly signed to the Cameo-Parkway label and given the chance to record. A song called "The Class," on which Checker offered various impersonations, failed to crack the charts in 1959.
The style-making rock-and-roll-oriented television program, American Bandstand, with the perennially popular Dick Clark as host, was based in Philadelphia. Clark, on the lookout for new talent and alert to new dance trends emerging in the African American community, booked Evans on the show to perform what would become his signature song. "The Twist" had originally been recorded by the Detroit rhythm-and-blues singer Hank Ballard, but had been released with little success. Clark's wife rechristened Evans "Chubby Checker," deriving the name from that of Fats Domino and alluding to Checker's own portly build and, in October of 1960, Checker appeared in American Bandstand. Although his recording of "The Twist" was almost a note-for-note replica of Ballard's, it was Checker's version that topped the charts nationwide.
The innovative dance that accompanied the song with its hip-swiveling moves caught the spirit of rock and roll. Its unusual configuration, with dancing couples not touching each other but instead merely facing each other and displaying their own individual styles, seemed to offer a new spirit of freedom.
Chubby he may have been to begin with, but Checker lost thirty pounds as a result of demonstrating the Twist in concerts and media appearances over the next year. The singer enjoyed several more top ten hits in 1961, all of them drawing on the dance craze that Checker had already done much to set in motion. These included "Let's Twist Again," "The Fly," and "Pony Time." The latter provided Checker with another Number One hit. By October of that year, Checker was a bona fide national star, and received an invitation to sing and dance "The Twist" on the television program that still, seven years after it had made a superstar of Elvis Presley, reflected and formed the tastes of Middle America: he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in October of 1961.
Checker's actual recording of "The Twist" had cooled somewhat by this time, but this television appearance prompted Cameo-Parkway to reissue the song. It once again rose to the top of the charts, remaining there for thirteen weeks at the beginning of 1962. "The Twist" remains the only song of the modern era to rise to the Number One chart position in two separate releases, and based on chart performance it has been counted among the top singles of all time.
In 1962 and 1963, Checker continued to hit the top ten regularly, playing a part along the way in popularizing new dances such as the Limbo and the Hucklebuck. In 1963 he married Catharina Lodders, a former Miss World from the Netherlands. His popularity finally sagged, along with that of many other American performers, during the British invasion years of the middle 1960s. Since then, Checker has made several comeback attempts, with only moderate success. He cracked the U.S. pop top forty with a cover of the Beatles's "Back in the U.S.S.R." in 1969, and with a rap remake of "The Twist" in 1988, undertaken, appropriately enough, in collaboration with the group the Fat Boys. That recording rose to the Number Two chart position in Great Britain.
The secret to Checker's longevity as a pop icon was due less to new recordings than to his indefatigable energy as a touring performer. In the late 1960s, with his career at a low ebb, Checker put together a band and went on the road. "I said, 'What do you got? You've got the Twist,'" he recalled in conversation with the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. "If you've got lemons, you make lemonade. Stop frowning. You keep your nose to the grindstone, be honest about your business and your fans will wake up."
For much of the rest of the century, Checker spent well over two hundred nights a year on the road, making occasional movie and television appearances. Vigorously defending the rights to his prize property, he several times engaged in court wrangles over rights to "The Twist." By the century's end, "The Twist" was an indelible part of American culture, but Checker had not slackened his pace of personal appearances. In the year 2001 he appeared as himself on the hit television series Ally McBeal, performing in a bar that was hosting a Twist contest.
Works
Selected discography
- Twist, Cameo, 1960.
- Twistin' Round the World, Cameo, 1961.
- Your Twist Party, Cameo, 1961.
- Let's Twist Again, Cameo, 1962.
- For Twisters Only, Cameo, 1962.
- For Teen Twisters, Cameo, 1962.
- Don't Knock, Cameo, 1962.
- Limbo Party, Cameo, 1963.
- Chubby Checker's Biggest Hits, Cameo, 1963.
- Beach Party, Cameo, 1963.
- Chubby Checker in Person, Cameo, 1963.
- Folk Album, Cameo, 1964.
- The Change Has Come, MCA, 1982.
Further Reading
Books
- Contemporary Musicians, volume 7, Gale, 1992.
- DeCurtis, Anthony and James Henke, eds, The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, Random House, 1992.
- Nite, Norm N, Rock On, updated ed., Harper & Row, 1982.
- Stambler, Irwin, Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock & Roll, St. Martin's, 1989.
- Billboard, February 26, 1994, p. 13.
- Entertainment Weekly, December 24, 1993, p. 67.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, July 14, 1993, p. 0714K7854; May 11, 1995, p. 511K0364; July 19, 1995, p. 0719K6760.
— James M. Manheim
